


Baby, All I Need

by Chromi



Series: Thirsty Prompt Fills [9]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Anal Fingering, Arguing, Dorks in Love, Established Relationship, Fist Fights, Gentle Sex, M/M, Making Love, Making Up, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-Coital Cuddling, Tenderness, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:21:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24395680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromi/pseuds/Chromi
Summary: It was, as Marco reported to Whitebeard later on that night once Ace was safely stitched, bandaged, and nursing his pride with an enormous plate of meat and several of his division, perhaps the most foolish of reasons for a couple to fight he had ever seen. Petty. Jealous. Downright hilarious. Whitebeard had chortled good-naturedly, suggesting that Marco didn’t intervene further.Ace and Deuce have a fight that results in blows being dealt... for the silliest of misunderstandings.
Relationships: Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco & Portgas D. Ace, Masked Deuce/Portgas D. Ace
Series: Thirsty Prompt Fills [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761259
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55





	Baby, All I Need

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I'm scared about posting this one. It was mostly written in one sitting so I'm sorry if its rushed and/or bad!
> 
> Written for the prompt “Can you feel how much I want you?” with AceDeuce!

It had been a stupid fight. A stupid reason that saw Ace angrier than he reasonably should have been, snatching a chair in the mess hall and flinging it to crash and splinter against the wall.

Deuce’s response was every bit as dramatic; like for like, stupid versus stupid, as Marco had sighed far later on while he patched up Ace, ignoring the string of insults that were snapped at him in retaliation. Children, the both of them, Marco had concluded.

 _You wouldn’t catch Thatch and I arguing so violently,_ Marco had _tsked_ , ignoring Ace’s venomous glare, _especially not over something that clearly isn’t as bad as it first looks. There’s got to be a reasonable explanation for this._

Ace had spat, literally, lip curling. _He knows what he did_ , he growled, refusing to watch as Marco cleaned the cut along his forearm, the damage a result of Deuce launching a plate at him in defence. _He deserved what he got._

 _And you?_ Marco had challenged, tongue between his teeth as he worked, healing the smaller cuts before focusing his attention on stitching up what his powers couldn’t tend to in another. _Do you think you deserve these injuries?_ When Ace had huffed, Marco added, _ah, so you do recognise that you overreacted._

_Fuck off, old man._

It was, as Marco reported to Whitebeard later on that night once Ace was safely stitched, bandaged, and nursing his pride with an enormous plate of meat and several of his division, perhaps the most foolish of reasons for a couple to fight he had ever seen. Petty. Jealous. Downright hilarious. Whitebeard had chortled good-naturedly, suggesting that Marco didn’t intervene further.

 _Let the boys settle down and talk it through_ , he had advised, gesturing that Marco join him upon his huge throne of a chair, _and perhaps tell the others not to butt in, either._

* * *

“So what did you do?” Thatch asked, dabbing at Deuce’s lip where Ace’s fist had split it. He smiled at Deuce’s deep frown and clarified, “c’mon, guys don’t tend to attack their partners in front of basically the whole crew unless there’s a good reason.”

“He’s a violent, crude idiot,” Deuce snapped, wincing under Thatch’s care, “who doesn’t understand that sometimes he might not have the whole picture before he goes apeshit at me.”

“Uh oh,” Thatch said, trying his hardest not to smirk at what was very quickly transpiring to be every bit as ridiculous as he originally thought, “what, did he walk in on you standing too close to a nurse or something? Leaning over Marco’s shoulder? Hell, smiling at a patient?”

“No,” Deuce said roughly, seemingly insulted by the thought that Ace could be _that_ clueless. “He’s not _that_ bad; he wouldn’t fly off that handle at something like that.” He fell silent as Thatch finished up cleaning the blood off his face, then, when Thatch threw the paper towel into the trash and started rooting in Marco’s first aid kit for the antiseptic, Deuce added in a low mutter, “Sonya, the nurse, she… she’s a bit too friendly with me sometimes… Ace _has_ commented on it before…”

“Ah.”

Thatch gave Deuce a sympathetic look, knowing exactly what he meant. All of the nurses had, most unfortunately, taken to Deuce quite unlike any other doctor within the crew. _Cute_ , they called him, although Thatch personally couldn’t see why. They all loved their _baby doc_ , as they affectionately nicknamed him, and were often remarkably casual with their affections for him. When asked, Deuce would shrug and claim he had no idea why they liked him so much; when the question was posed to the nurses, however, they cooed and swooned and declared that he had won their hearts when they discovered he was in a relationship with Ace. _There’s something so pure about a captain and a first mate together_ , Anna, one of the other nurses, had sighed when Thatch had asked on his snack rounds one afternoon. _Not_ our _captain and first mate_ , she hastened to add, knowing what that grin of Thatch’s meant, _but don’t you think they’re cute? Plus, he just begs to be taken care of, don’t you think? They both do, but Ace won’t let us near him._

No, Thatch didn’t think so, particularly, but each to their own, he supposed. His parental instinct clearly wasn’t strong enough to extend beyond Ace.

“So Ace walked in on…?” Thatch prompted when Deuce didn’t reply, instead frowning at his feet.

Heaving a sigh and tilting his chin to let Thatch disinfect his lip, Deuce said, “he walked in on Sonya trying to…”

“Trying to?”

Deuce rolled his eyes, cheeks flushing. “It’s so stupid,” he muttered, and Thatch didn’t doubt that at all, knowing full well what kind of nonsense could go on in the infirmaries, “and if he had just _listened_ rather than leaving like that—”

“Oh, like _you’ve_ never stormed out on anyone before?” Thatch snickered when Deuce glared at him. “What did he think he saw Sonya doing?”

The story burst out of Deuce in one massive tidal wave, and it was obvious just how indignant and embarrassed he was about the whole fiasco.

“I couldn’t get the cord in my scrub pants undone,” he said quickly, as if to do so would make remembering the story less painful, “you know, the string that you tie to keep them up? It got knotted really tight, and I was _desperate_ for the bathroom after surgery—I couldn’t get it undone, and the more I tried the tighter it got. Then Sonya must have heard me panicking or something because she—she came into the men’s changing room and—”

Thatch dropped his face into his palm, having a very good idea as to where this was going. Of all the comedic, unbelievable scenarios… Trust Deuce to land himself in one.

“Well,” Deuce spluttered, blush deepening, brow furrowing tighter, “she—she wasn’t doing anything untoward! And I told her I could manage! But she was all like, _oh poor baby doc, can’t get out of his scrubs?_ And so she knelt down to untangle the knot, and I _said_ I would go find a scalpel or something to cut through the cord, but _no_ , she insisted on helping, and she got it loose alright. But then the scrubs slid down because they’re _huge,_ Thatch, they’re gigantic—and that’s when—”

“And then Ace walked in on you with your scrubs around your knees,” Thatch concluded with a huge sigh, giving Deuce the most sympathetic look he could muster without laughing, because really, the poor boy was still in such a state, “and Sonya at eye level with your dick, and you visibly red and sweaty, at a guess." He sighed again, voice shaking with his suppressed laugh. “Oh _dear_ , lad. Oh dear.”

“I chased after him when he flounced off,” Deuce said defensively, clearly irritated by Thatch’s reaction, “I told him Sonya just wanted to give me a hand—”

“Jeez, Deuce, you _really_ don’t help yourself, do you—”

Deuce gaped at him for a moment, obviously thinking hard, before he decided to ignore Thatch’s comment and powered on instead. “But I couldn’t keep up with him,” he said, a pleading tone edging into his voice now, “because, well, like I said, I was desperate, I couldn’t—I had to leave him—and then when I found him again he had worked himself up into a state, and—”

“As had you,” Thatch sighed. “Don’t look at me like that,” he chortled, dabbing at Deuce’s split lip with the antiseptic wipe, rolling his eyes dramatically when Deuce flinched and hissed at the sting of it, “you’d given yourself time to stew over and decide upon a million different ways to explain and defend yourself, hadn’t you? Instead of staying calm and choosing your moment appropriately, you dove in the second you found him which was, most unfortunately, in the mess hall right before dinner.” Thatch sighed again, casting Deuce with a fond look. “You remind me of myself in my youth, boy.”

“Not a boy,” Deuce grumbled, “I’m twenty-one soon… we’re both adults…”

“Then start behaving like one,” Thatch said sternly, patting Deuce on the shoulder before heaving himself to his feet with a grunt. “Take a deep, cleansing breath, relax, and then go to bed.”

Deuce whipped around to stare incredulously after Thatch as he threw away the antiseptic wipe and headed for the doorway, intent on forgetting all about this lover’s quarrel and getting himself thoroughly drunk with Marco, if he was done babysitting his charge. “Go to bed?” He echoed, frowning at the grin that Thatch shot him over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t I go talk to him? What’s that gonna achieve?”

“He’ll come to you before the night’s over,” Thatch said confidently. “Trust me on this; Marco’s good with matters of the heart. He’ll be brutally honest and set your beloved right, and then Ace will have an epiphany and come looking to kiss and make up. And if I’m wrong,” he added as an afterthought, clicking his fingers, “then Marco loses the bet and will owe me washing up duty for a week. It’s in his best interests to get through to your Flame, lad.”

“Do either of you ever go a day without betting on the rest of the crew?” Deuce frowned. Thatch, however, didn’t answer, leaving him with a cheery wave and a booming laugh.

* * *

Pops had told him not to get involved any further. Pops had also told him not to let the others intervene and potentially make the situation much, much worse. Well, it was too bad that Marco had already wrangled Thatch into playing Agony Uncle to Deuce while Marco went back to have another crack at Ace and his fragile self-confidence.

He found him easily enough at the stern, chin in his folded arms, watching the waves lazily churning way, way, way below, black as the night sky above them. A full moon hung vast and magnificent, lighting up the deck and guiding their slow meander through the relatively calm waters.

“Quite the romantic night, wouldn’t you say?” Marco drawled once he was in earshot of his charge, smiling easily at the glare that Ace shot at him. Leaning against the railing and standing closer than was probably advisable when Ace was in this sort of mood (if Deuce’s injury was anything to go by), Marco’s smile turned into something of a smug grin under Ace’s moody silence. “Surely you should be making use of this in your cabin with your sweetheart, rather than glaring daggers at the sea.”

“I told you to fuck off,” Ace shot at him, taking a step to his right in a gleefully childish attempt to distance himself, “and that warning still stands.”

“Are you going to throw a chair at _me_ if I stay here?” Marco asked innocently, and, ah, yes, right on cue – Ace flushed dark, brow furrowing deep over his silver eyes. Perfect. “You behaved poorly,” Marco stated, cutting right to the chase, “and you regret it.”

“I do _not_ ,” Ace spat, voice muffled against his arm. “I told you what I saw, Marco, and it was pretty clear what was going on. She was—” he swallowed audibly, like the mere memory of what he thought he had seen caused bile to rise and foam in the back of his throat. Marco suddenly found this silly argument to be a whole lot less funny than he had mere seconds ago. Pressing the heel of his palm to his eyes, Ace’s breath hitched into what was unmistakably a suppressed, dry sob and, even though he didn’t look back at Marco, it was pretty damn clear that he was trying not to cry. “Why would he do that?” Ace asked, voice wavering despite obviously trying to keep it in check. “Is it because of Rog—”

“No,” Marco cut in with such finality that Ace looked up at him, fury and misery both dropped for the moment. “It’s nothing to do with your birth father,” Marco assured him, adopting a more sympathetic tone, “and it genuinely wasn’t what you thought, either.”

“What else could it have been?” Ace demanded, flaring up so easily, so readily, the poor thing forever guarded and tense even against those who knew and loved him regardless. Could the guy never give himself a break? Never see that those around him genuinely did not give a flying fuck about Roger? Marco was positive that Deuce only ever thought about Ace’s father when forced to, when it was rammed in his face – just as was the case for both Marco and Thatch, too, who also knew.

“You mean to say you can’t imagine a situation that would have necessitated such a scene?” Marco prompted, because dammit, while he felt sorry for Ace, he wanted him to reach the truth through his own efforts if he could – or at least meet Marco halfway there. When Ace shrugged and turned his face back out to the sea, Marco tried a different angle. “How much do you know about Sonya, outside of the fact that she’s a nurse?”

Ace frowned again, pausing to think. “She’s gorgeous,” he grunted unwillingly, “long blonde hair, big ass, pretty face… everyone in my division’s in love with her. Skull’s obsessed with her.”

“You know she’s in a relationship, right?”

“Yeah, well,” Ace snorted humorlessly, “so’s Deuce, but that hasn’t stopped—”

“With Anna, one of the other nurses.”

Ace turned so quickly that Marco almost pre-emptively diagnosed him with whiplash. He stared at him like he’d never seen him clearly before, mouth hanging open in shock. “Shut up,” he whispered disbelievingly, voice almost lost to the lull of the waves, “is she? Since when?”

“Since the day she successfully recruited her, I believe,” Marco said calmly, smiling at Ace. “Sonya’s not interested in men, Ace. She never has been. She and Anna fawn over and baby Deuce, yes, but they certainly aren’t attracted to him.”

“How do you know that?” Ace challenged immediately, turning to face Marco properly, fists balled so tight his knuckles turned white. “Are you sure? You’re absolutely sure?”

“I’m their commander, their lead clinician, and their friend,” Marco said, grinning broadly. “I’ve walked into _far_ more compromising situations involving Sonya and Anna than you could ever hope to dream of, I’m sure. I’ve listened to both of them vent their worries after arguments, just as we’re doing now, and have had to endure many, many, _many_ hours of them cooing and squealing over your poor boyfriend together. They rather remind me of you, actually, when you get Kotatsu to yourself.” Marco snickered as Ace flushed again, looking thoroughly embarrassed and caught out. “And besides,” Marco continued, tone rolling into something far more gentle as he leaned a little closer, smiling kindly at Ace, “Deuce is _in love with you_. Have you ever listened to him talk about you? The poor guy is utterly besotted and furiously protective of you. I spend a lot of time with him _and_ with Sonya, and I would like to think that if there was anything going on between two under my direct supervision, I would pick up on it. There’s nothing to worry about, I promise you.”

“He talks about me?” Ace asked quietly, uncertainly. When Marco nodded, he added, “a lot?”

“I think that, if we let him, he would never shut up about you,” Marco said. “You’re the only thing on his mind, other than his books. And that notebook… which you might want to read,” he added with a sneaky, sidelong grin. “I think you’d find his fixation _very_ interesting.” Thankfully, Ace seemed to put two and two together, reaching the conclusion that what filled Deuce’s thoughts all day was most probably what also filled his adventure log. “I spoke to Thatch on the way here,” Marco confessed at last, running a hand through his windswept hair as he turned away from Ace, “who’s been with Deuce. He’d got himself tangled up in his scrubs and was on the verge of having an accident before Sonya freed him. He’s innocent… albeit very embarrassed.”

Ace left him in a rush, garbling his thanks and apologies and promises of _drinks are on me_ the next time they were on shore leave together. As Ace hurried away, Marco called after him to try his bedroom before looking for Deuce anywhere else.

Those silly, silly fools.

* * *

Just as Thatch had promised, Ace came to look for him in the bedroom. Panting, clearly having just run to the room from up on deck, given how his hair framed his face in a wild mess, Ace marched over to him after locking the door behind himself.

The bed dipped under Ace’s knee as he climbed on, heading straight for Deuce in the moonlight streaming through the porthole. Fingertips ghosted along his jawline, bringing with them that intimately familiar heat that only Ace could possess. Deuce leaned into his touch, heart racing in anticipation of what he was to find, barely daring to hope that this was resolved.

“Marco talked to Thatch,” Ace whispered, straddling Deuce above the sheets and sitting warm in his lap, “and Marco passed the message on to me. I’m so sorry, Deu. I’m so, so sorry.” He tilted Deuce’s face up to better see him in the dim light, the sadness in his eyes barely visible. “I hurt you,” he said, sounding _so_ horrified, hurting also, thumbing just shy of the cut to Deuce’s lip, “god, I _hurt_ you. That’s unacceptable.”

“I did too,” Deuce quietly reminded him, sliding his palms up Ace’s bare back, drawing him in closer, “I threw a plate at you, for goodness’ sake.”

“Yeah, and I _smashed a chair_ ,” Ace grimaced at his own behavior, “and punched your poor face…” He pressed a soft kiss to his lips, his touch as delicate as a summer breeze. “I’m so sorry, Deu. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.” Ace murmured to his lips, but Deuce shook his head slightly – there was no need to apologise, words themselves fast becoming irrelevant, every utterance spelling time wasted, a moment longer where he wasn’t kissing Ace senseless.

Yet Ace wanted to say his bit, it seemed, laying a finger to Deuce’s lips to still his attempt at silencing his partner. “Of course there’s no way you’d cheat on me,” Ace breathed, stroking Deuce’s cheek with the backs of his fingers with tender care, love brimming in his dark eyes. “I know that – I _know_ that – but when I saw you two like that, I just—I panicked, I think. I can’t bear the thought of los—”

Deuce hushed him softly, his touch roaming down to settle at Ace’s waist to caress, to squeeze at hard muscle. He felt so _right_ in his arms, so flawless, all warm and firm, handsome and perfect. He was _so_ lucky to have Ace; so exceptionally blessed to be loved as he loved in return.

“No one compares to you,” Deuce whispered, leaning in to mouth fleeting kisses to Ace’s jaw, welcoming the groan, the tilting back of Ace’s head in response, “no one even registers to me in that way. You really are the one and only person I’m even remotely interested in.” He sighed lightly, rolling his hips up into Ace’s weight atop him, yearning to slide his hand down and touch Ace’s cock through his shorts.

With a sigh of his own through his nose Ace moved with him, grinding down onto Deuce’s erection through the sheets, his shorts, causing stars to spark in Deuce’s vision.

“Deuce,” Ace groaned, “I love you.” He rocked forward, the tent in his shorts rubbing up against Deuce’s abdomen and earning an eager little huff of breath from Deuce. “I’m so in love with you, I forgot myself,” he confessed breathlessly, forehead tapping to Deuce’s, clawing at his hair at the nape of his neck; it was like Ace couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t feel enough of Deuce to satisfy the enormity of his feelings for him – a sensation that Deuce was only too familiar with.

Inspiration struck, and Deuce gently took Ace’s hand in his own, guiding it down between them. Without breaking eye contact – without so much as blinking, only drinking in Ace’s soft gray darkened by the night – Deuce laid Ace’s hand against himself, settling to cup his erection through the thin sheets.

“Can you feel how much I want you?” Deuce asked through a slow kiss to Ace’s chin, taking in how Ace heated up instantly, heart pattering that little bit faster against Deuce’s chest. “Do I feel like I’m upset about our fight?”

Ace dipped to capture Deuce’s lips, fingers slipping beneath the sheets to take him in hand properly. A pleased little hum vibrated through Ace’s lips along Deuce’s own, Ace evidently happy to find him bare.

“No,” Ace concluded, thumbing through the bead of pre-come gathering at his cockslit, drawing a slow, deep inhale from Deuce, “but that doesn’t— _ah—_ ” a kiss to his neck made him falter momentarily, relaxing into the touch, “b-but that doesn’t excuse the fact that I hurt you.”

“I did too,” Deuce pointed out quietly, casting an apologetic look at Ace’s arm, “and I’m so sorry – I shouldn’t have got so defensive, Ace. It was _so_ stupid—”

“We were both stupid,” Ace concluded.

“So very stupid.”

A small laugh bubbled up in Ace’s chest as he kissed Deuce again lightly. “Your poor lip,” he murmured, pecking a butterfly kiss to the injury, “I’ll make sure to kiss it better for you.”

“Please do,” Deuce encouraged, parting his lips when Ace leaned back in for a proper, searching kiss of the likes that swept away all coherent thought.

It made sense for Ace to react so badly to the sight he had seen, and Deuce, now that they were removed from the humiliating heat of a public argument, could absolutely understand his thought process behind his actions. The only person who knew of his deepest, most awful secret, yet wanted a romantic relationship with him regardless, had appeared to be changing his mind and swapping to someone _better_ ; someone _good_ , in Ace’s eyes.

Only Ace _was_ good; Ace was everything good that Deuce had ever known, had ever had the immensely good fortune of finding and loving. There was no comparison to others, the possibility of falling for someone who _wasn’t_ Ace one that genuinely left Deuce confused by. To want another; to love another; it wasn’t something that he could do.

There was Ace, or there was no one. And that was how he would always feel, whether Ace fully understood it or not… Yet Deuce couldn’t help but feel that if Ace were to observe as an outsider, unblinkered by his own deep-rooted hate, then he would understand Deuce’s love as he himself did.

“Ah, Ace…” Deuce moaned on Ace rubbing a touch rougher, blunted nails digging into Ace’s waist, “Ace… your shorts…”

He didn’t need telling, didn’t need directing any more than that. His shorts, underwear, and boots hit the floor after a brief struggle to tug them off, and then Ace was back in Deuce’s lap. The moment apart gave Deuce the time needed to throw the sheets off himself, leaving them bathed in moonlight, skin silver as frost. Those dark freckles that Deuce loved so dearly appeared darker under the soft light, framed so beautifully by tumbling dark hair.

“I’ve just showered… _properly_ ,” Ace said pointedly, locating their lube on the nightstand and pressing it to Deuce’s palms, “and I know you haven’t since this morning, so…”

Deuce felt his eyes widen at the implication, heart picking up speed. “Are you sure?” He asked, feeling nervously breathless without warning. Barely daring to breathe – to believe this break in tradition that typically saw _him_ taking Ace to the root and _thanking_ him for it – Deuce swallowed as Ace nodded, eyes lidded.

“If you want to, of course,” Ace said quietly, tucking Deuce’s hair behind his ear and sliding back into place atop his lap, “we don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to, but…” Warm fingers curled around his dick again, and Deuce’s forehead hit Ace’s shoulder in parallel with a loud, harsh gasp. _But it’s so obvious that you **do** want to_, Ace’s touch seemed to say.

Because of course he did. _Of course he did_.

Tenderly, slowly, Ace dipped to kiss Deuce again as he popped the cap off and coated his fingers in the lube. Warmth flooded him with that kiss – that sweet, simple press of lips to lips, unhurried and perfectly calm in its pace, guiding Deuce through the buzz of nerves that tingled at his skin. He reached around, trailing sticky between the cleft of Ace’s cheeks until he found his entrance and, on touching what had to be cold fingertips to such heated skin, Ace bucked back into that touch with an encouraging sigh.

“That’s it,” Ace whispered in Deuce’s ear, rocking hard up against Deuce’s stomach and spreading his knees a little wider, “that’s it, Deu.”

He didn’t need encouraging to slide his middle finger inside – he didn’t need encouraging to swallow Ace’s sudden exhale brought about by the firm press, his bruised lip throbbing under Ace’s open-mouthed kiss in such a _delicious_ way. That heat enveloped him, welcomed him back, called for him to curl his finger forwards to press to nerves that had Ace dripping wet to his abdomen.

 _Beautiful_ couldn’t describe him. No words in Deuce’s vocabulary could. _Nothing_ could begin to sum up the vastness of the love that suffocated Deuce in that moment – hell, in _any_ given moment, truthfully – and that rendered him dizzy and gasping for air, breaking their kiss most reluctantly. Ace felt _right_ , so tight and hot around him, silken walls contracting on Deuce’s every minute movement, relaxing again through sheer willpower of one used to and welcoming of such intimate touches.

It saddened Deuce to no end to think that Ace could ever – even if for a split second, or even unconsciously – believe that Deuce could give him up.

“ _Ace_ ,” Deuce mouthed against his lips, easing in a second finger alongside the first to the most _fantastic_ of throaty moans from Ace, “ _Ace, I love you.”_

Was there a word bigger than love? A word that encompassed everything that Deuce felt, that Ace felt for him? _Adore_ didn’t fit, didn’t sum it all up, somehow; _worship_ carried the wrong connotations, implying something more one-sided in one’s favor. And what were Ace and Deuce if not entirely equal?

Deuce loved how Ace felt around him. Revelled in every tiny reaction that his gentle easing of his wrist to slide his fingers in and out pulled from Ace. Every fleeting contraction – every hitch of breath, or sigh, or tightening of nails into his biceps, in his hair, at his throat—

A third finger was introduced too hastily for their slow tempo, earning a soft, broken cry that curbed at the back of Ace’s throat. Deuce’s cheeks colored at such a raw sound, his reaction no different to the first time he had ever touched Ace so intimately, lost in the wonder that was his boyfriend.

Ah, he didn’t deserve this man. He didn’t deserve to be this blissfully happy, his heart full of him.

Small, quick kisses rained down on Deuce’s lips as Ace angled deliberately high to slide off his fingers, the hot palm still working its slow rhythm at Deuces’ cock slowing to angle him, hold him in place. Deuce helped, silently guiding Ace by the hips to position his slicked entrance at the tip, suddenly _very_ in tune with how his heartbeat thrummed through him, making sweat bead at his hairline in anticipation for Ace’s descent.

“Slowly,” Deuce sighed on that first tantalising press against yielding, warm skin, “you don’t—don’t need to r-rush.”

Fingers slid into his hair, directing he look up into Ace’s eyes rather than favoring watching his chest expand and shiver as he rocked down. Deuce accepted Ace’s kiss, this one again slow and measured, enjoying the act, the feeling of each other rather than rushing toward their end.

“Love you,” Ace whispered against him as he bottomed out, sitting flush to Deuce’s lap, “ _ah_ —love you, D-Deu.”

His thighs, Deuce barely registered, trembled around him as Ace shifted to position more comfortably, wrapping those strong, tanned legs around Deuce’s waist to hold him as close as physically possible. A favorite of theirs, this position; one that allowed for a closeness that others may not quite achieve.

A position that allowed not for a hard, fast, rough fuck, but rather something far slower… far more personal… one that now saw Deuce’s fingers skimming up Ace’s spine, breathing with him on Ace’s gentle roll of his hips downwards, head lolling back. Drawing him in as close as he could, Deuce strained up to close his lips over the prominent tendon in Ace’s neck, thrown into sharp relief by the moonlight, by his angle.

Ace seemed to _glow_ under Deuce’s touches, arms coming to rest atop Deuce’s shoulders after brushing his own dark hair back off his face. Fingers pressed between Deuce’s shoulder blades, slipping in tandem with each rock, each slow, searching press of their bodies together that had Deuce spilling curses and tears to Ace’s collarbone before long. It was so _much_ , _too_ much, the tenderness, the proximity, the heat of Ace’s heart drumming against his chest, his pulse quick and frantic around Deuce’s cock gloved within him.

Words of love flowed like water between Deuce’s lips, laved and bitten into Ace’s freckles. He couldn’t take his eyes off him, couldn’t tear them away from how the moon lit his features and gave him a dappled silver hue. And, wonderfully, the same applied to Ace – tangling his fingers into Deuce’s hair and tilting his head back with little direction, he described exactly how beautiful he thought Deuce looked right now, each word a tickle of warm breath to the shell of his ear.

If only he could hold him like this forever; if only time could stop for them, and they existed solely in each other’s arms.

But instead that all too familiar cramping, coiling heat caught up with him, seeing Deuce grip Ace by the hips and shudder through his climax, gasping hard to Ace’s chest where he nuzzled and kissed. A few moments of hurriedly stroking Ace’s cock between them at Ace’s instruction finished him too, painting them in near boiling moonlit silver.

And Deuce held him. Just held him.

Just held him, and loved him, and refused to move again until his heart calmed and his cock softened, easing free of Ace’s body.

* * *

“Would it be inappropriate to suggest we fight daily if the sex that follows is like that?” Ace mused some ten minutes later, watching how the moonlight cast shadows along his ceiling as Deuce sighed into the curve of his neck.

“Yes,” he said flatly, yet he snuggled in closer, pulling Ace against him at the waist, “hugely so.”

“Oh.” Ace carded his fingers through Deuce’s hair, enjoying how it shone silver in the low light. “Okay, I won’t say it, then.”

The laugh that was huffed into his neck tickled. “We should thank Marco and Thatch,” Deuce said thickly, stifling a yawn, “for being good enough to talk to two enormous idiots like us.”

“Yeah,” Ace sighed in agreement, “but not right now.”

“Well, no, not right now.” Deuce sat up just enough to be able to look at Ace, propping himself up on his elbow. The moonlight caught on his long, dark eyelashes like liquid silver as he blinked, making him look softer than usual, somehow. Ace leaned into the kiss that Deuce placed at his lips, smiling into the gentle contact, before Deuce murmured, “no more misunderstandings.”

“And no more fighting,” Ace added.

“This has been a learning curve, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Ace?”

“Hm?”

“There will never be anyone but you.”

Ace grinned broadly, heart fluttering appreciatively in his chest at the conviction in Deuce’s voice. “Love you too, Deu.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to fill [my Tumblr](https://chromiwrites.tumblr.com/) inbox with prompts, nonsense, or anything at all! I love to chat TT
> 
> Comments and kudos let me know if I'm doing something right, and I always love your feedback!


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